It was fortunately a bright moonlight night, suitable for travelling, and about one o'clock the two friends escaped by driving off rapidly in their horse and buggy. They did not know the road to Haverhill, but were directed by their friends with all possible minuteness. Three miles away, also, there was the house of an anti-slavery man, and they obtained further directions there. Some time after sunrise they stopped at a wayside inn to bait their horse, and get a bite of breakfast for themselves. While they were at table the landlord said,—
"They've been having a h—l of a time down at Haverhill."
"How is that?"
"Oh, one of them d—d Abolitionists was lecturin' there; he had been invited to the town by a young fellow named Whittier; but they made it pretty hot for him, and I guess neither he nor Whittier will be in a hurry to repeat the thing."
"What kind of a fellow is this Whittier?"
"Oh, he's an ignorant sort of fellow; he don't know much."
"And who is this Thompson they're talking about?"
"Why, he's a man sent over here by the British to make trouble in our government."
As the two friends were stepping into the buggy, Mr. Whittier, with one foot on the step, turned and said to the host, who was standing by with several tavern loafers:—
"You've been talking about Thompson and Whittier. This is Mr. Thompson, and I am Whittier. Good morning."
"And jumping into the buggy," said the poet, with a twinkle in his eye, "we whipped up, and stood not on the order of our going." As for the host he stood with open mouth, being absolutely tongue-tied with astonishment. "And for all I know," said the narrator, "he's standing there still with his mouth open."
Mr. Thompson was secreted at the Whittier farm-house in Haverhill for two weeks after this affair.
Some two months after the disgraceful scenes just described occurred the mobbing of William Lloyd Garrison in Boston. He had gone in the evening to deliver a lecture before the Female Anti-Slavery Society. A furious mob of "gentlemen of property and standing" surrounded the building. Mr. Garrison took refuge in a carpenter's shop in the rear of the hall, but was violently seized, let down from a window by a rope, and dragged by the mob to the City Hall. Mr. Whittier was staying at the house of Rev. Samuel J. May. His sister had gone to the lecture, and Mr. Whittier, on hearing of the disturbance, had fears for her safety, and went out to seek her. He said to the writer that when he reached the City Hall he saw before him the best dressed mob imaginable. Presently he heard a cry, "They've got him!" After a short, sharp scuffle Garrison was got into a carriage by the police, and taken to the Leverett Street jail, as the only place where he could be safe that night in Boston. Mr. Whittier and Mr. May immediately went down to the jail to see him. Garrison said that he could not say, with Paul, that he was dwelling in his own hired house, and so he could not ask them to stay all night with him! His coat was not entirely gone, but was pretty badly torn. He was at first a good deal agitated by the affair, but when they left him he had become calm and assured. On the same evening, the mob threatened to make an attack upon Mr. May's house. Mr. Whittier got his sister Elizabeth safely bestowed for the night in the dwelling of another friend. He and Mr. May passed a sleepless night, and at one time half thought that, for safety's sake, they should have stayed in the jail with Garrison. However, they were not molested.
It is a remarkable testimony to the esteem in which Mr. Whittier must have been held by the citizens of Haverhill that, notwithstanding their bitter hatred of Abolitionism, they elected him their representative to the State Legislature in 1835, and again in 1836. In 1837 he declined re-election. In the legislative documents for 1835 he figures as a member of the standing committee on engrossed bills. His name does not appear in the State records for 1836: it was undoubtedly owing to his secretarial duties, mentioned below, that he was unable to take his seat as a member of the Legislature in the second year of his election.
In 1836 Whittier published "Mogg Megone," a poem on an episode in Indian life. It will be reviewed, with the rest of his poems, in the second part of this volume. In the same year he was appointed Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and removed to Philadelphia. In 1838-39, while in that city, he edited a paper which he named the Pennsylvania Freeman. It had formerly been edited by Benjamin Lundy, under the title of the National Enquirer. The office of the Pennsylvania Freeman was in 1838 sacked and burned by a mob. It was about the same time that Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia was burned to the ground by the citizens, on the very day after its dedication. Mr. Whittier had read an original poem on that occasion. The hall had been built at considerable sacrifice by the lovers of freedom, in order that one place at least might be open for free discussion. And it was just in order that it might not be used thus that it was burned by the guilty-thoughted mob. The keys had been given to the mayor, but neither he nor the police interfered to prevent the atrocious deed.